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“Of course, I’m joking,” she says, drawing out each word as if she’s savoring it. “What, you think I’d really bring peanuts? You could die.”
She leans in as she says it, her lips almost grazing my ear, breath warm against my skin. The word die rolls off her tongue like something intimate, something obscene: a promise and a threat at the same time.
My jaw tightens. “I mean it,” I growl, the anger boiling to the surface now. Because with Emma, it’s never just a joke. Every tease is a test.
She pulls back just enough to look at me properly, her hand sliding lower, fingers hooking into my belt for control.
“Max,” she murmurs, almost tender, “if you die, it’s going to be because I put my hands on you, not because of some cheap bag of bar snacks.”
My body reacts before my brain does, heat punching low in my gut. That’s the problem. She knows exactly which strings to pull to make me move, to make me obey, to make me bleed. I don’t say a word, not because I want to let her win, but because it would be toxic and dangerous, and I would be giving her what she wants—dominance. Behind her, the neighborhood looks harmless. Kids in costumes dart past on the sidewalk, their shrieks of laughter sharp and high. Parents stand at the ends of driveways, holding plastic cups and trading small talk. Porches glow orange, fake cobwebs fluttering. No one looks at us twice. We are just two people who are about to get in a car together, close together, arguing, flirting, or both.
They have no idea we’re not dressed up. This isn’t a costume. This is what we are.
Emma’s thumb strokes my lower lip, smearing a faint line of her lipstick onto my skin. Her eyes are still on the road ahead, but her body is rising to reach me. Her pupils are blown wide, almost swallowing the color of her irises. The same look she gets when we’re in the middle of it—when someone is tied down, and begging, and she’s deciding how much dignity to keep.
“Get in,” she says, voice turning brisk again, like flipping a switch. She moves to the passenger side and then changes her mind, circling to the driver’s door. “I want to drive tonight.”
That sends another shiver down my spine. Emma driving always means one thing: she’s in a specific mood. Something darker. Something hungry.
I close the trunk, the sound too loud in the quiet street, and walk around to the car. As I open the door, she watches me from behind the wheel, fingers drumming lightly, rhythm matching my pulse.
She smiles, slow and satisfied.
“Come on, Max,” she murmurs. “We’ve got a city full of pretty little treats. Don’t make them wait.”
Fuck. I might be dead before we even find someone to kill.
And the worst part is, my body is already choosing how it wants to go.
Thirty minutes later, I sit in the passenger seat, hands clenched together, swearing, balling between, thinking any second I could go into shock from the nonexistent peanuts that could be lying in the back, just one wrong move—one bite and my throat would be closing. I would die.
But that’s not going to happen; it was an evil joke, but then again, it’s Halloween, and that’s what it’s about, careless jokes, but for us it’s revenge and a chance to rid the world of something ugly, a stench you can’t get rid of unless you dig them ten feet under because six would be too risky for the police.
The deeper they go, the less chance of me ending up in jail while I watch for the sign flickering. Hallow fest a smile tug, and my head turns to Emma, who’s too busy looking for the parking lot for the staff-killer, but that must remain unveiled; no one needs to know that we’re here to kill, ruin, and unleash the unholy devil in my hollow near non-existent heart.
“Will you hurry up and pick a space?” Irritation slices through my words, sharp enough that even I hear it. The engine hums, headlights cutting across the endless rows of cars and gravel, and still Emma is inching along like we’re out for a Sunday drive.
The night hasn’t even started yet, and my temper is already fraying. If something as mundane as a parking space can get me this riled up, I don’t even want to think about what I’ll do to the first person who speaks to me the wrong way—hell, even looks at me the wrong way. Someone will. They always do. There’s always one drunk idiot who thinks they’re braver than they are, who sees the costume, the blood, the darkness, and decides they’re the main character.
Who am I kidding? I know exactly what I’ll do. I can already feel it coiling in my gut.
It’s the blood I’m thinking about. Not hypothetical blood—real, hot, slippery blood, the kind that clings to skin and pools in dirt and seeps into fabric. The thought of it makes my cock hard, a slow, familiar throb that syncs with my pulse. Everything about this night turns me on: the fear humming just beneath the laughter, the way the air feels electric when people walk into a place they shouldn’t, the way they always underestimate the dark.
All I can picture is Emma’s sweet ass bent over one of their bodies, as I fuck her in their blood. Their screams still echoing, or maybe just the wet, gargling sounds of whatever’s left of them. Emma’s hair stuck to her neck with sweat, her eyeliner smeared, eyes gone wild the way they do when she stops pretending to be a nice girl.
That plan sounds fucking incredible. It makes me feel wrong in all the right ways, like every step I take tonight is another stamp on a ticket straight to hell. But as delicious as that fantasy is, tonight isn’t just about mindless violence. Not yet. Tonight is about the maze.
Our maze.
Every year, we switch it up, reinvent the stage, and find a new playground for people who think they’re just here for a scare and a photo. Last year, it was the bat cave—a ‘historic’ cave, according to the brochure. In reality, it was damp rock and the thick smell of guano, the floor slick in places where water slid down old stone, the air alive with the frantic flutter of wings.
You should’ve seen their faces when they lined up at the entrance—groups of friends in matching costumes, couples clinging to each other, drunk idiots hyping themselves up on cheap beer. They thought going into a bat cave on Halloween was edgy, that they were taking a little risk they’d laugh about later. They thought the waiver form was just part of the fun.
They just didn’t realize some of them weren’t coming back out.
I think the best part of last year was renting out the bats. People expected them to be props or holograms. No one believed they were real until the first one swooped low enough to skim someone’s hair and sent them screaming. But believe it or not, I won’t hurt an animal. They don’t deserve it. Animals don’t pretend. They don’t lie. They don’t come here to get off on fear and then go home and forget what they saw.
People do.
